Pointless: Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman on TV's favourite quiz | Media | The Guardian BBC Pointless: Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman on TV's favourite quiz Alexander Armstrong and co-host Richard Osman aren't the slickest of quiz show hosts – far from it, in fact. But Pointless is a huge, Countdown-killing hit, and about to air its 500th show ‘We make a virtue of the bits where it all collapses’ … Alexander Armstrong (right) with co-host Richard Osman on the set of Pointless. Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian Tuesday 4 June 2013 12.32 EDT First published on Tuesday 4 June 2013 12.32 EDT Share on Messenger Close "Coming up with a quiz show is the hardest thing in the world," says Richard Osman , and he should know. "It's like coming up with a brand new sport." Though the co-host of Pointless is now an on-screen celebrity, he has worked behind the scenes in television for two decades. You could call him a quiz show guru. And, sitting with him in his dressing room an hour before filming, I do. He laughs. "If by guru you mean quite old.

But yes, I'll take that." As creative director at production company Endemol , Osman is much more than the show's resident know-it-all. "Every morning I get the ratings coming in from the night before for all the shows we produce. I know good news and I know bad news. For most TV shows, it's bad news, because most TV shows fail. But now and then you get a show and you think, oh, look at that. This is interesting." Pointless began life with a simple idea. "The first thought," says David Flynn, one of the show's co-creators, "was what about reverse Family Fortunes? What if it's all about finding the least obvious answer? That was the thing that intrigued us: rewarding obscure knowledge, while allowing people to also give obvious answers. It felt like you could start to create a quiz which could be sort of highbrow and populist simultaneously, which is quite a rare phenomenon." Osman was never supposed to be on screen. He stood in as co-presenter when Endemol pitched the show. But the BBC liked him. "They said: 'Would you do it?' And I thought: 'Well, why wouldn't I? I know roughly what the job is.

I know it's a little show tucked away on BBC2 that's going to disappear after one series.' You know, it was just one of those things I could tick off and say: 'I once presented a TV show.'" Host Alexander Armstrong knew Osman from their student days at Cambridge. "We were in the same college in the same year. I always liked him. He was quite conspicuous. He was very cool, which I wasn't." Armstrong's involvement in Pointless was almost as unlikely as his co-host's. A year before, he had publicly turned down the role of Countdown presenter , telling the Independent: "If I'm going to be on telly as a presenter every day, well, I think that makes it less likely that people will give me jobs acting or doing comedy. For the next couple of years that's where I want to focus really." "Countdown caught me slightly off-guard," he explains. "I quite liked the idea because it was a job. I mean, that's an income, and that was a time in my life when we'd had one baby and were about to have a second. I was worried about being typecast, but I was worried about having a job.

My heart ruled my head on that one and I said: 'Do you know, actually, no, I can't do it. I just don't think I could do that.'" Osman reasoned Armstrong might be up for something similar but less high-profile. "When we were thinking about Pointless we thought, well, it'd be amazing, if he'd do it. I think the fact that it was me he'd be working with kind of sold it to him." "When we found Alexander, that was when all the bits fell into place," says David Flynn. "There's a real relationship there, which is something that's very difficult to make up. Of course this was at a stage when we were expecting it to be a nice, fun series on BBC2, that might come back once." The first series of Pointless went out on BBC2 at 4.30pm, from August until October 2009, with a respectable but uninspiring average audience of one million viewers. The format has been altered a little since, but the core elements are the same. The goal is to score as few points as possible by finding the least-obvious correct answer.

The questions have been asked in advance to a group of 100 people online, who have given every answer they can think of. Contestants – in four teams of two – score points for every person surveyed who gave their answer. The holy grail is a "Pointless Answer", an answer no one else has given, which adds £250 to the jackpot and, in the final round, wins it. Reading on mobile? Click here to watch Pointless video clip The name Pointless – and all the running gags that come with it; "the pointless column"; "my pointless friend"; the "pointless trophy" – arrived late in the process. "We originally called it Obviously," says David Flynn. But pointless answers were a sticking point. "We used to call that a plegazoid. Which is a made-up word." After 30 episodes, Pointless was renewed for a second run. "It did well enough that you would give it another go, but it was nothing like it is now," says Flynn.

"If you'd asked me at that point: 'Do you think this is going to be a primetime Saturday night hit?' I would have said: 'I would be amazed.'" Armstrong had his doubts about the early shows, too. "I remember watching the second series at the gym once and just thinking, Oh God. All the bits where we had fun have been quite carefully edited out. It was all very slick, and all you were left with was a sort of terribly inept game show hosting from me and some fairly dry stuff from Richard. And I remember going to Dave Flynn and saying: 'Can't all that stuff stay in? The fun stuff?' "We had a big talk about it after the second series. We had five sets of contestants and we got it down to four, so one fewer round in the show, which meant there was much more time for us to muck about. And it meant that Richard and I could actually make a virtue of the bits where we go off and it all collapses." Regular viewers will know it collapses often. The frequent awkwardness between host and contestants or co-host is unaffected and unintentional, for which Armstrong blames himself. "I'm staggered at how bad I am at this particular job.

I'm rubbish at it. I'm hopeless. If you watch someone who's really good at doing these sorts of shows, they're much slicker." But it is, says Osman, part of the charm. "I think it has a real Britishness to it." Back in his office, Osman was keeping a close eye on the viewing figures. "During that second series, it started to get a bit of traction. And then it started creeping up, and TV shows never do that. It just doesn't happen. I thought: this has got the makings of something that actually might run for longer than I suspected. And then, third series, it went through the roof. And then we were on BBC1, and then it was Saturday night celeb versions." The show is now in its ninth series. An average of 3.6 million people tune in every day to watch, and prime-time spin-off Pointless Celebrities is in its fifth series. Thursday's show – on BBC1, at 5.15pm – will be the 500th episode. The 600th has already been recorded. Has the show's success confirmed Armstrong's fear of being typecast? "Only in terms of time commitment.

That's my only regret. By and large I can't go up for things or, if I do, invariably I'm unavailable for them. So I read fantastic scripts for things that I then discover I'm not going to be able to do." Ironically, Pointless now dwarfs the show Armstrong turned down. April's viewing figures for Countdown were its lowest ever: less than half a million. Pointless is, in a sense, a natural successor. "I always felt when I used to watch Countdown it felt like being part of a club," says Osman. "You just felt part of a lovely group of people who were doing the same thing at the same time of day. And I hope that Pointless feels a bit like that." Could Pointless, like Countdown, survive with a different pair of presenters? "I think it could," says Osman. "It's a really lovely vehicle for two people who get along. I feel immensely fortunate that me and Xander are those two people in its present incarnation. And I'm not going to willingly give it up, because I love it." Armstrong agrees without a moment's hesitation.

"I don't know about Richard, but it could thrive with someone better than me." But would he be happy to keep his Pointless job for another 500 Pointless episodes? "I think I'd be happy to do this for as long as – " He pauses, searching for the right words, a little awkward. "I mean, I really genuinely enjoy doing this." BBC - BBC TV blog: Pointless: How I became the co-host Richard Osman | 12:57 UK time, Wednesday, 6 July 2011 So Pointless started at 5.15pm on BBC One on Monday, launching with a week of celebrity programmes. We've already done over 100 shows on BBC Two and now we're making the big leap up to BBC One. Very exciting. In one swoop I will go from being "Whassisname, that bloke from that thing on BBC Two," to "Whassisname, that bloke from that thing on BBC One". Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman If you haven't seen it - for example, you might have a job - Pointless is a quiz show where you win by giving obscure answers to simple questions. We also like to have some fun along the way.

The wonderful Alexander Armstrong is the host and I'm his 'pointless friend', providing extra facts, trying to tell jokes, and adding to the Brokeback Mountain -style sexual frisson of the show. I had never appeared on TV before. My background is behind the camera. First as a writer on shows like Have I Got News For You and Whose Line Is It Anyway? , and then as a producer on shows as varied as Deal Or No Deal , Total Wipeout and 8 Out Of 10 Cats . My new TV presenting career came as an unexpected but lovely surprise. So how did it happen? Well, my day job now is creative director of Endemol UK , and part of that role is trying to sell new shows to TV channels. The Endemol creative team had come up with the format for Pointless and we headed off to the BBC to do a run through of the show for the brilliant Liam Keelan and Pam Cavannagh, who run the whole of BBC Daytime. In this run through, the executive producer of Pointless, Tom Blakeson , played the role of the host, and I played the role of co-host.

Liam and Pam were sufficiently impressed/hoodwinked that they bought the show. Hooray! Barney Harwood and Helen Skelton on Pointless Celebrities Alexander was the perfect choice as host - warm, witty, clever, sickeningly talented and handsome - but Liam and Pam wondered if I might like to be the co-host for real? I pretended to consider the offer for nearly two to three seconds, but inside I couldn't have been more excited. I love television, I love its presence in the corner of every living room in Britain, I love the sense of belonging that television uniquely can bring. To me, actually appearing on TV - in a quiz, my favourite thing, filming at BBC Televison Centre - is a dream come true. Excuse me while I get teary-eyed for a bit. I just hope you enjoy the show as much as we enjoy making it. So, that's the story so far. Now, though, it's the move to BBC One, to the slot filled so brilliantly for so long by Anne Robinson . We're not the Weakest Link ... hello. Richard Osman is the co-host of Pointless Celebrities and Pointless .

Pointless Celebrities is a week of special episodes on BBC One at 5.15pm until Friday, 8 July. The regular quiz show Pointless resumes on BBC One at 5.15pm on Monday, 11 July. Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC. Five British Game Shows The U.S. Should Remake | Anglophenia | BBC America Five British Game Shows The U.S. Should Remake Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman of 'Pointless' (BBC) Copy the link below By Seb Patrick | 3 years ago Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman of ‘Pointless’ (BBC) There’s a long-established tradition of cultural exchange between the U.K. and U.S. when it comes to game shows. For every Wheel of Fortune going one way there’s a Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? going the other; sometimes Family Feud gets renamed Family Fortunes when it crosses the Atlantic, whereas other times we both get stuck with Anne Robinson presenting Weakest Link.

The genre is in something of a purple patch in Britain at the moment, with a number of strong quiz and game formats emerging over the last few years, and several highly-regarded shows performing well in the ratings. Some of these shows – like The Chase, Million Pound Drop and, uh, Don’t Forget The Lyrics! (sorry about that one) – have already had American conversions, with varying degrees of success. But there’s still a rich seam of shows that could, if converted well enough, potentially perform strongly stateside. Here’s our pick of five such contenders. 1. Pointless <noscript><iframe width="500" height="281" src="" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></noscript> Probably the most universally-loved quiz show on British television at the moment, BBC One’s Pointless boasts the killer combination of a great format executed brilliantly. The game itself sounds like a head-scratcher but is remarkably simple in practice – like Family Feud/Fortunes, questions with multiple possible answers are first posed to a random selection of 100 volunteers.

The contestants on the show are then asked the same questions – but in a twist, they’re looking for the answers that have been given by the fewest possible people, with the ultimate aim being to score a much-coveted “pointless” answer. Four couples play through a succession of rounds, with the highest-scoring pair being eliminated each time. A (relatively low) cash jackpot accumulates on a daily basis until one team can hit a “pointless” answer in the final round and take it home. Aside from the fact that the game itself is good, Pointless succeeds by the strength of personality of its hosting team – lead anchor Alexander Armstrong (also seen in Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures) has a likeable wit, and great interplay with desk-based stats sidekick Richard Osman (originally the producer of the show, Osman took on the on-screen role in the pilot and clicked so well with Armstrong it became a full-time concern). Recreating that dynamic would be difficult, but by no means impossible with the right pair of hosts. There’s also a spinoff series, Pointless Celebrities, in which various television personalities (usually grouped by theme) face off for charity. 2.

Countdown <noscript><iframe width="500" height="281" src="" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></noscript> A light-hearted, cerebral words-and-numbers game, Countdown was the very first show broadcast by the then-new Channel 4 in 1982, and has been a venerable fixture of British screens ever since, racking up over 5,500 daily episodes at the time of writing. Two contestants – one the previous day’s “champion”, the other a fresh “challenger” – are given sets of randomly-chosen letters (although they get to choose, taking it in turn, what ratio of consonants to vowels are deployed) out of which they must make as long a word as possible within a 30-second time limit. Whoever gets the longest word is given the same number of points as there are letters – unless they get a maximum 9-letter word, in which case points are doubled and they get a big round of applause. It’s Scrabble on television, basically, although the letter games are also intercut with math rounds, in which five numbers must be used to try and reach a randomly-generated three-figure total.

Countdown is often cited as a show that’s so quintessentially British – everything’s very polite and sedate, and it’s clearly aimed at a somewhat older audience, though it’s also popular with students – an American translation would be impossible, but attempts have been made in the past (never getting past the pilot stage). With the requisite tweaks – relying on simple pieces of card to display the letters and numbers would probably never fly – the game itself is strong enough that it could surely be made to work. It might need better prizes, though: daily champions win not money, but (in almost stereotypically English fashion) a custom teapot, while each series winner gets a leather-bound set of the Oxford English Dictionary. 3. The Crystal Maze <noscript><iframe width="500" height="375" src="" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></noscript> Going back a little bit further, this, but The Crystal Maze – which ran on Channel 4 between 1990 and 1995 – remains pretty much the gold standard for British game shows.

Originally hosted by Richard O’Brien of Rocky Horror Picture Show fame, the show saw a team of six contestants making their way through a huge, custom-built facility (housed in an aircraft hanger) divided into four themed “time zones”: Aztec, Industrial, Medieval and Futuristic. Each of these zones consisted of rooms containing individual challenges – some physical, some skill-based, some cerebral – which were to be completed by one contestant within a two- or three-minute time limit in order to win a “time crystal”. Each crystal successfully obtained granted the team five seconds in the show’s end-game, the “Crystal Dome”, where they would try to gather enough foil “tokens” to win the show’s grand prize (usually a group adventure holiday of some kind). To an unfamiliar viewer it probably all feels a little cheesy, but The Crystal Maze worked in part because it sold the concept convincingly (O’Brien remained firmly in-character throughout, albeit with the odd fourth-wall-breaking wink to the audience), and because the games were always a perfect mixture of styles and difficulty levels, so the game remained tense and exciting throughout.

It’s a much-loved, much-missed series – the only real reason it’s not around any more is because of how expensive it was to stage, but surely that wouldn’t be of as much concern to a U.S. network…? 4. Tipping Point You might have trouble believing this one is a real show, but here goes: you know those “coin pusher” (also known as “quarter pusher”) machines you get in arcades? Where you put a coin in a slot and hope it nudges enough other coins forwards that some more drop out, hopefully along with a prize or two? Well, imagine that… but on television. No, seriously. Contestants answer questions in order to win “counters” that they get to place in a giant replica coin pusher, with a view to winning cash prize amounts at the other end. That’s basically all there is to it. It’s another show that has a celebrity spinoff (yes, that is Sixth Doctor Colin Baker in the above clip), too. But really, the reason it would be great to see an American remake is that the U.K.

version feels so embarrassingly cheap and small that the show could actually stand to have the budget and glamor levels boosted in the way that Deal Or No Deal did when it arrived in the U.S. 5. The Cube <noscript><iframe width="500" height="281" src="" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></noscript> While The Crystal Maze is no more, its spirit lives on in this more recent ITV show – albeit on a smaller scale. The Cube – once described as “a cross between Portal and pub games” – sees one brave contestant enter a clear Perspex cube to carry out a range of increasingly difficult games requiring immense skill, balance and dexterity. There are several reasons why The Cube works so well. The over-dramatic styling of the show means that each challenge feels genuinely tense and nail-biting. The games themselves often look deceptively simple, so a viewer at home can watch and think “I could do that”.

Like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, the contestants get to see each game before deciding whether to play or stop and take their money – with the proviso that if they fail a game enough times that all their “lives” are lost, then they go home with absolutely nothing. There are also little tweaks here and there that further add to the experience – Millionaire-style “lifelines” such as a one-off chance to make a game easier, or to “trial run” before deciding whether to continue. It’s also ridiculously difficult – only six people have ever reached the final £250,000 ($388,000) game, and only one person has actually succeeded at it. Oh, and that one person just happened to be double-gold-medal winning Olympian Mo Farah, in a celebrity special. It’s that hard. It’s a show that could be packaged up almost wholesale and exported to the U.S. with barely any tweaks – so it’s baffling that it hasn’t yet made it over. A pilot was recorded in 2010 for CBS with Neil Patrick Harris as host, but has never been aired, and there are no signs yet of it developing into a series.

If it does ever make it, though, here’s a hint: don’t let any more Olympic athletes play, they make it all look a bit too easy… What are your favorite British game shows? Pointless Celebrities - TV Guide UK Pointless Celebrities Pointless Celebrities Season 4 Episode 4 of 6 Episode Rating: 6.0 Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman present a radio special of the unorthodox general knowledge quiz.

Contestants Scott Mills, Gemma Cairney, Michael Buerk, Jenny Eclair, Ken Bruce, Anneka Rice, Shelagh Fogerty and Christian O'Connell try to come up with the least likely correct answers to a series of questions posed to the public in the hope of winning a jackpot sum for charity Rating: 5.9 Pointless Celebrities - TV Guide UK Pointless Celebrities Pointless Celebrities Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman present as famous faces take part in the general knowledge quiz in which they try to come up with the least likely correct answers to a series of questions posed to members of the public Rating: 5.8 Pointless - UKGameshows Pointless Broadcast Brighter Pictures for BBC Two, 24 August to 7 October 2009 (30 episodes in 1 series) Remarkable Television for BBC Two, 8 March 2010 to 22 December 2010 (80 episodes in 2 series) Remarkable Television for BBC One, 14 March 2011 to present (but see Trivia below) as Pointless Celebrities: Remarkable Television for BBC One, 4 July 2011 to present Synopsis Cross

 the surveys of Family Fortunes with the inverse scoring of Beat the Nation and you get...

well, you get Topranko! , more or less. Or, if you're BBC Two and pitching for the daytime audience, you get this. If it was us, we probably wouldn't tempt fate (and TV critics) by calling it Pointless, though. A wide view of the Pointless set. So anyway, Endemol — or rather their appointed agents, specifically market research company Redshift Research (replaced by Morar Consulting in 2016) — has given 100 people, 100 seconds to name as many things as they can in a given category. These categories are fairly varied, although categories relating to countries and their languages, locations, affiliations etc, do seem to appear far more often than any other category. In the studio, the contestants only have to come up with one answer at a time, and (provided it's a valid answer) they will score points, from zero to 100, depending on how many people gave that answer in the survey. The aim is to give the most obscure answers, and thereby receive the lowest score.

Ideally, one would give an answer that nobody gave in the survey - a "pointless" answer - thus scoring nothing at all, and incidentally adding £250 to the jackpot (which starts at £1000 and goes up by £1000 each day it remains unwon). The show's round structure changed considerably from series 1 to series 2, although the basic set-up of asking contestants to guess obscure answers from those provided by 100 surveyed people remained the same. As the numbers go down, the audience gets ready to cheer. Series 1 Five pairs start. Each of the first three rounds has the same gameplay: a general category (say, "film" or "politics") is given, to allow each pair to decide which of them will go first in that round. Once the order has been decided, the actual question is given, e.g. "Films directed by Steven Spielberg" or "British Prime Ministers Since 1900" and Richard Osman duly puts the categories in context by confirming exactly what's required and the main source from which the answers are drawn.

Alexander Armstrong asks the first player in each pair in turn to give an answer fitting that category; a valid answer scores as outlined above, while an invalid answer scores a penalty of 100 points. After the first player from each pair has given an answer, the second player steps forward to give their answer. The player from the pair who gave their answer last in the first section gives their answer first, the player from the pair who gave their answer fourth in the first section answers second and so on, thereby limiting any unfairness resulting from being the last to answer. Once both players in each pair have answered, the pair with the highest score is eliminated, however each pair is allowed to return for a second and final chance on the next day's show. In the event of a tie-break, each pair must provide another answer, over which they can confer. Each round is treated as a separate contest, with the scores starting afresh from zero each time. The red line where everyone says "STOP!". After three rounds, the two surviving pairs play the "head to head" round; the scoring is as before, but now conferring is allowed and encouraged. Also the pair who scored lower over the previous three rounds gets to choose one of two categories.

(They also get to choose whether to go first or second, though it seems unlikely that a few seconds' extra thinking time would make up for the disadvantage of always having second "pick", so anyone with their wits about them will choose to go first.) The pairs get an equal number of turns, and the round ends when one or both pairs go over 100 points. The higher-scoring team is eliminated and the other wins the "coveted" Pointless trophy. The 21st century's new Wipeout paperweight. The winning team also gets to go for the cash jackpot, which entails picking one of three categories and then giving a Pointless answer to whatever the question is. They are given up to one minute to come up with three answers, however they only need one of them to be Pointless to win the jackpot, but even so it's a very difficult endgame and is rarely won. Oddly, whereas the pairs eliminated earlier in the game can return for second try the next day, the pair who reach the final are not allowed to return the next day, regardless of whether they win or not, and immaterial of whether it is their first time on the show.

A problem (which is fixed in series 2) with this section arises from contestants tending to give what they consider their best answer first, which can lead to a bit of an anticlimax if this doesn't win, and their remaining two answers are obviously duds. Series 2 The first major change is a reduction from 5 pairs of contestants to 4, allowing more time for Alexander and Richard to, basically, be funny. Apparently, when Alexander Armstrong saw the first series, he was so shocked that all the off-script banter had been edited out, he begged the producers to keep it in. Other than this, round one is identical to the first three rounds of the previous series; everyone gets to give one answer each and the highest-scoring pair are knocked out. Onto round 2, and they start to shake things up a bit. Sort of. The format is identical, but the contestants are presented with a list of seven options to choose from. Each list, we are told, contains at least one pointless answer (oooooh), but at least one incorrect answer as well (booooo). A new list of 7 is presented after the first three contestants have given their answer.

Whilst this change is presumably supposed to trick the viewer into thinking there is more variety going on than there really is, it does give them the opportunity to ask slightly harder questions (or questions for which there is no definitive list of all possible correct answers, e.g. "stringed instruments"), as well as to give contestants who have absolutely no idea a chance. (A not too uncommon scenario in the first series would be for a contestant, needing a good answer to stay in, having no idea and either playing it safe or coming up with something ridiculous, neither of which made for particularly exciting telly.) Another result of the change (and you can decide for yourself whether this is a good or bad thing) is that it may be possible to work out which is the pointless answer simply by a process of elimination. As fully-paid-up members of the shout-the-answer-at-the-telly club, we also have to report that picking out a pointless answer from a selection provided, is nowhere near as satisfying a playalong experience as coming up with pointless answers yourself. After the second set of answers the highest scoring pair are, as usual, shown the door, and we move onto round three, which for those of you who have been paying attention, is the Head to Head.

Here they have made arguably the most improvement. Rather than the single question, to-and-fro, first-to-100-except-not-if-the-other-team-go-over-by-more format of series 1, we have a best-of-5, where each pair gives one answer and the one that scores lower earns a point. This is quite a clever move on several counts. Firstly, we get more questions, which is always a good thing, especially when in the previous series we might have to watch for five or more minutes as contestants gave answers to just one question. It also makes the round much more dramatic. Once both pairs have given their answer, we have a split-screen Pointless-o-meter. Pointless's homage to the Twin Towers. One pair's answer is checked, and one half of the Pointless-o-meter goes down (or turns into an X, as for any other wrong answer). We then swap to the other team and do the same thing.

This makes every question at least a little bit exciting; unlike series 1 where either the first few were pretty uninteresting (because no-one was going to get close to 100 for a while), or the game was (pretty much) over immediately when it became apparent that one pair didn't know anything at all about 'pre-1980 BBC Oxford weathermen'. One benefit that must surely have been felt by the researchers, if not by the viewers (and certainly not by the contestants), is that with only two answers being given to any question, there is much more scope for lists with very few members, some examples of which will show up once the series has aired (though one example to get you started is "members of The Famous Five", of which there are, well, five). Although one downside to this is that occasionally they choose a list where many people will know all the answers (such as "words that GNVQ stands for"), in which case the pair that went first will (usually) have a huge advantage. The team that gets to three points first wins, and goes on to the Pointless final, which remains unchanged, except that contestants are asked to rank their three answers in order of confidence.

This cleverly solves the problem of contestants giving their 'best' answer first, which led to some anticlimax in the first series. Series 3 More changes were afoot in the third series. The second round was changed again, so that instead of a straight list of things in a category, players are now presented with what is essentially a list of trivia questions on a theme - for example, they may be given a list of movie taglines and asked to name the movie, or a list of characters from children's literature and asked to name the book. A wrong answer results in a 100 point penalty, a right answer scores in the usual fashion. The first round sometimes follows the standard first-round format, and sometimes the old second-round format. The head-to-head round has been reduced to best-of-three, but the jackpot round is unchanged.

Series 5 A further variant on round one was introduced in what apparently was Series 5 (which ran on from series 4 without break or acknowledgement - the only clues being an update on the cut-off point for time-sensitive subjects and the fact that the Coveted Pointless Trophy appears to have been very subtly redesigned with a slightly larger volume of clear glass at the top), in which two related categories are played, one on each pass, e.g. the first time this was played, the categories were "Boy Bands" and "Rock Bands", with the players on the first pass naming Westlife hits and those on the second pass naming Status Quo hits. Considering how rapidly the show is burning through categories (and there does seem to be a bit of desperation creeping in to the head-to-head questions with subsets of previous categories turning up with increasing regularity), it seems a bit strange to suddenly introduce a game format that uses up even more. Later changes Alright, we admit it, we've lost track of where the series breaks are.

Anyway, over the next couple of years, the format was gradually refined and by Autumn 2013, the format had settled down to the one we now know, in which one of the first two rounds will be a category question (or sometimes an "identify people or things in this picture" question), and the other is Q&A. The two-linked-subjects and pick-from-a-list questions are long gone. The head-to-head is now a best-of-three question-and-answer round, and usually comprises a picture question, a "clues to five facts about x" question and some sort of "disguised words" question, where five things in a category are given as anagrams, or with missing letters. A few other variations are sometimes used. The picture question normally comes first, unless there has already been a picture question earlier in the show. For a while in series 10 (September/October 2013) they experimented with not always having the picture question first, but it soon went back to normal.

Key moments There was some rather paranoid censorship in the third series - the film titles Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Inglourious Basterds (both incorrect answers to their respective questions) suffered post-production bleeps. You wouldn't get that happening on The Weakest Link . When Inglourious Basterds was offered as an answer to "Quentin Tarantino Films" in series 8 (correctly this time), the contestant had to whisper the second word in Xander's ear. (Shouldn't it have been Richard's ear?) Catchphrases "You just didn't have that pointless [subject] knowledge" (series 1 and 2) (When demonstrating the wrong answer graphics) "You really don't want to see that..." "Let's see if it's right, and if so, how many people said it" "It's good!

It's very good!" "Well done if you got that at home." "He's my Pointless friend - he's Richard." (Usually preceded by some surreal epithet or metaphor relating to Richard's apparent mastery of obscure facts.) "Great contestants!" (said about most contestants when they leave) Some of Richard's rules explanations are given so frequently that we expect the audience to shout out the last words with him. For instance, "We're looking for any feature film made for cinematic release in which {actor} is given an acting credit. No TV films, short films or documentaries - but voice credits do count" "And by 'country', we mean a sovereign state that's a member of the UN in its own right." Alexander also has various stock phrases to introduce the show, of which arguably the best is "Welcome to Pointless - the show where the lowest scorers are the biggest winners." Theme music Marc Sylvan Trivia During the programme's run, "Central African Republic" has proven to be the most pointless country in the world. In the first series it appeared as a pointless answer to four separate questions: "Countries beginning with C", "African countries", "French-speaking countries" and "national flags with stars on".

And just to rub it in, its capital Bangui was a pointless answer to "Capital cities beginning with B". In the third celebrity special in 2011 appeared as a pointless answer to "Countries with five or more borders" while it was also a pointless answer to "Flags with the colour green on them" and "Countries that have had a female leader" (i.e. an elected one) in series 5. Furthermore, in series 6, it was a pointless answer when its prime minister Faustin-Archange Touadéra was amongst the heads listed in "Leaders and their countries". One sharp correspondent noted a bit of a gaffe, or at least an inconsistency, during a round on "Tudor and Stuart Monarchs of Great Britain". Mary, Queen of Scots was ruled to be an incorrect answer, because she was only queen of Scotland ("the clue is in the name," said Richard). However, monarchs of England before the union of the crowns were allowed, so strictly speaking, she should have counted as well (along with a number of other pre-union Scottish monarchs). All of which leads us to ponder how well contestants would fare if faced with the topic of pre-union Scottish monarchs.

There's only one way to find out... and we don't mean fight. The largest amount of money won on the show is £20,250. This was won on 23 January 2013 ("Phillip Pullman books": The Shadow in the North). This narrowly beat the previous record of £20,000, won on 20 November 2012 ("Countries whose name contains only one vowel": Panama). The next largest jackpots were £15,500, won on 4 August 2011 ("Marlon Brando Films": The Island of Doctor Moreau); £12,750, which was won on 29 March 2012 (Toy Story films voice actors: Timothy Dalton); and £12,250, which was won twice in the second series, firstly on 10 March 2010 ("National trails of England and Wales": The Ridgeway), and again on 16 April 2010 ("Countries that use a dollar": Tuvalu).

On 3 September 2010, contestants David and Susan received the unenviable honour of being the first contestants in Pointless history to receive 100 points, but not as a result of giving an incorrect answer. Given a list of possible answers, the contestants had to answer with what type of food they thought each one was. Contestant David answered that Parmesan was a type of cheese and was perfectly correct, however unfortunately for him and his wife Susan, all of the 100 people surveyed also knew it was a type of cheese, meaning they scored 100 points, despite answering correctly. However, thanks to a strong performance from Susan, the couple still managed to win both the round and the show - though not the jackpot. To date, two other 100-point answers have been given. One was by contestant MJ on 19 February 2013, when the category was "Capital Cities" and the clue "Hosted the 2012 Olympics". (Oh, and the answer was "London", as if you didn't know.) She and her dad survived the round, but didn't win the show.

The other was given by Antony Worrall Thompson on a chefs edition of Pointless Celebrities broadcast 31 August 2013, when all 100 people knew the foodstuff omitted from the film title [blank], I Shrunk The Kids. Xander was amazed by this and claimed he'd never seen it happen before - given that the copyright date on the end of the show was 2012, it's just possible that the episode was recorded before MJ's, but you'd think he might recall the previous occasion. On the first pass in the same round, Worrall Thompson's team mate Rustie Lee correctly stated that 'Peach' was the missing word in James and the Giant [blank]. However this scored 89 points, giving the pair a total score of 189, the highest score ever recorded on the programme, without giving an incorrect answer. It's right, but it's not good: the scoring column lights up for a 100-point correct answer On 21 July 2011, the first round subject was "U2 Singles" and amazingly all of the first four contestants gave incorrect answers, resulting in the row of 100s seen below.

Surprisingly (and to the relief of all concerned), the return pass went off without a hitch. For the record, none of these are U2 singles: "Red Red Wine" (the contestant admitted she always got U2 and UB40 confused), "Hello Hello" (the player was thinking of "Vertigo", which her partner gave on the second pass), "Goodbye" (which was a flat-out guess) and "The Joshua Tree" (a U2 album, not a single). This happened again on 27 March 2012 with the subject "Robert Redford films". On 26 October 2015, the second round, on naming the acts who recorded hits with "Wish" in the title, produced no correct answers at all, with all three pairs scoring 200, then when allowed to confer, all failing yet again (one pair even guessed that the 1978 hit "Wishing On A Star" was by Val Doonican, despite Xander already having let slip that the singer was female!).

They ended up having to bring out a back-up question (naming composers in Classic FM's Hall of Fame) and the two teams that progressed did so with scores of 301 and 303. The best opening round ever. During the third series, the show was taken off air for a couple of weeks to make way for coverage of the 2010 Commonwealth Games. By a pleasing coincidence, the very first subject when it returned was "Realms of the Commonwealth", which was suddenly very easy for anyone who'd been watching that timeslot. This couldn't have been planned, because the series wasn't even recorded with the intention that it would go out around the time of the Games, but was brought forward as an emergency replacement for the planned show Perfection , which had to be re-shot due to a production error. The fourth series consisted of 60 episodes, which were shown in two separate runs. The first 25 episodes were shown in Spring 2011 in the usual 4:30pm weekday slot on BBC Two.

However when the remaining 35 episodes came to be shown in Summer of the same year, the programme was promoted to the 5:15pm weekday slot on BBC One, home for many years to The Weakest Link , which by that point had already been axed, and was demoted back to BBC Two, taking the slot vacated by Pointless. The first episodes to be shown on BBC One were five celebrity specials, from 4 to 8 July 2011, after which, the remaining 35 episodes from the fourth series were shown from 11 July 2011. To mark the programme's 200th edition on 30 September 2011, four couples who had previously appeared on the programme, but had scored the maximum of 200 points were invited back to have another go. Because we do get asked about this... yes, the computer is just a prop. That's why, when Richard has to read anything, it's always off a sheet of paper. And because we get asked about this, too... the height of the Coveted Pointless Trophy is five inches.

Apparently the producers have tried to interest the BBC in a children's version but for some reason Auntie Beeb won't take it. Merchandise Pointless (TV Series 2009– ) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error A game show where contestants aim to score the fewest points possible by guessing the least popular answers given by people in polls on various subjects. Stars: a list of 26 titles created 15 Dec 2011 a list of 22 titles created 13 Jan 2012 a list of 32 titles created 05 Feb 2012 a list of 1188 titles created 08 May 2015 a list of 21 titles created 1 month ago Search for " Pointless " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin.

Pointless Celebrities (TV Series 2010) Game-Show Celebrities try to find the most obscure answers to win money for their chosen charities. Stars: Alexander Armstrong, Richard Osman, Anton du Beke The Chase I (TV Series 2009) Game-Show A Game Show where contestants must compete against 'The Chasers' in a variety of questions in order to win money. Stars: Bradley Walsh, Jenny Ryan, Mark Labbett The long-running words and numbers game. Stars: Carol Vorderman, Richard Whiteley, Susie Dent The original British version of the quiz show that's become a worldwide hit. Host Chris Tarrant asks hopeful contestants a series of questions, each more difficult than the last. As the ... See full summary » Stars: Chris Tarrant, Eamonn Holmes, Stephen Fry You've Been Framed! (TV Series 1990) Comedy | Reality-TV Surreal comedy from the mind of Harry Hill, featuring his unique observations on the world's funniest accidents as captured on smartphones, video cameras, webcams & CCTV. If you've filmed a...

See full summary » Stars: Harry Hill, Jeremy Beadle, Lisa Riley British general knowledge quiz show which spawned imitations around the world, notably in the USA. Stars: Anne Robinson, Jon Briggs, Adam Woodyatt Member of the public go head to head in a series if obstacle courses to win 10,000 Stars: Richard Hammond, Amanda Byram, Joanna Chappell TV Burp (TV Series 2001) Comedy Harry Hill stars in this surreal comedy show, revolving around the previous week's shows on British television. Stars: Harry Hill, Steve Benham, Brian Belo Room 101 (TV Series 1994) Comedy | Talk-Show Comedy talk/game show in which celebrities present an argument for their pet hates in various categories to be banished forever to Room 101. Stars: Paul Merton, Frank Skinner, Nick Hancock A group of five strangers, each an amateur chef, compete to host the best dinner party, each party solely for the competitors and to be held on consecutive evenings. With a set amount of ...

See full summary » Stars: Dave Lamb, Lesley Joseph, Bill Buckley A game show hosted by Ant and Dec filled with stunts, sketches, and special guest appearances. Stars: Anthony McPartlin, Declan Donnelly, Kirsty Gallacher Game show in which contestants try to guess well-known phrases or sayings from animated picture puzzles. Stars: Roy Walker, Nick Weir, Stephen Mulhern Edit Storyline A game show where contestants aim to score the fewest points possible by guessing the least popular answers given by people in polls on various subjects. 24 August 2009 (UK) See more » Company Credits Did You Know? Trivia During a show, contestants were asked to name what food each type of food was. One option was Parmesan, which two contestants answered correctly as cheese. However, the two still got 100 points, as all the people surveyed knew the correct answer. See more » Quotes (United Kingdom) – See all my reviews I am a bit of a saddo, as I really like this show when I catch it. Alexander Armstrong is an excellent front man for it and I really like him as a performer and was surprised to see him doing this.

He has a special quality which comes across to the viewer (well this viewer anyway). The premise is that people try to find a pointless answer to the question posed thereby scoring as low as possible. Gentle humour is employed throughout and I like the fact that no-one is humiliated or made fools of in any way. I feel that the programme would benefit from a little faster pace but that is a minor quibble. It is almost educational sometimes too as one finds out facts one did not know before. Long may it last. Well I am adding to my review 16 months on and I am still addicted to it. If anything more so. It has really hit it's stride and Richard and Alexander's banter is witty, original and, unusually for a daytime quiz, funny. This one should run and run. 6 of 10 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes

Question: Who hosts the BBC TV quiz show 'Pointless'?
Answer: Alexander Armstrong